Mental health awareness: ‘Suicide is preventable’

Harmony Brown recalls having suicidal thoughts when she was as young as nine years old. She attempted suicide at 17 and went through years of emotional turmoil before finally finding the help she so desperately needed.

It’s a personal history many people in a similar situation would hide even from their closest friends. But Brown talks about it openly because she knows discussing her mental health is a way to give hope to others facing similar challenges.

“I know suicide is preventable,” says Brown, 36, a Toronto-based mental health advocate. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. And I know recovery is possible because I have gone through it.”

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If only someone else had spoken out when she was younger, she might have understood some of the sources of mental illness, she says.

“We didn’t have much information and didn’t understand the genetic factor in mental illness,” says Brown, whose father also had a mental illness. “It was even more of a taboo subject then than it is now, so I didn’t get the help I needed.”

“There is a tendency in some families for suicide to be a common phenomenon across multiple generations,” says University of Toronto professor of psychiatry Dr. David Goldbloom, a senior medical advisor with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and vice-chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

“But no one has identified a gene for suicide and it is unlikely that something as complex and determined by as many factors as suicide would ever be linked to a single gene. Because suicide is a complex human behaviour, the genetic contributions to it are likely to be complex.”

“We know that mental illnesses aggregate in families,” says Heather Stuart, a professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen’s University. “And we think it is a fairly complex bio-psycho-social mix of factors, so there may be genetic loading, environmental factors and a whole host of things going on at the same time.”

Goldbloom emphasizes the importance of the context in which suicidal thoughts and attempts occur.

“For instance, alcohol abuse is a risk factor for suicide and there are many genetic components to a vulnerability to alcoholism. Depression is another common context for suicide and there is significant evidence of biological risk factors, including genetics, that increase one’s vulnerability to developing depression.”

Brown says the factors that put her at risk were considerable. There was the physical and emotional abuse she experienced during childhood, her parents’ divorce and having to care for her three young brothers, as well as moving and changing schools several times in her teens.

“Life events like these take a toll on anyone’s mental health,” she says. “I was vulnerable due to genetic factors and I didn’t have great self-esteem, decision-making or coping skills — all the things that come with poor mental health. I got involved in drugs and alcohol. The result of making poor life choices is cumulative and you have even more stress and turbulence in your life.”

After receiving a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, “I really got discouraged and abandoned everything. The diagnosis was incorrect. So was the medication.”

In 2004, when Brown was 28, her father hanged himself. “Because I was responsible for the estate, I put my grief and emotions on hold. Two years after my dad passed away, I admitted myself to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.”

There, Brown was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. “Once I got a diagnosis and prescription that fit, I was in a better place to manage the anxiety symptoms that come with PTSD,” she says.

Two years later, she returned to work and school. She was teaching English in Cambodia when her 23-year-old brother committed suicide.

“That’s why I came back to Canada. I didn’t have a job or a place to stay. This was the second suicide in my family. I had the same illness. My boyfriend couldn’t handle the intensity and bailed. If there was ever a perfect storm for a relapse, this was it. But I hung on to my recovery when all the odds were against me.”

Now, says Brown, who works for Toronto Community Housing, is completing a degree in social work and runs her own business, her aim is making “recovery an option for everyone.”